A soliton is a light pulse that maintains its shape over a long distance. A soliton wave does not broaden, does not loose its shape and does not substantially weaken as it travels across a particular medium. This means that better transmission and fewer repeaters are required. Solitons have been known to carry 5 gigabits of information per second over 15,000 kilometers or 10 gigabits per second over 11,000 kilometers.
Different ways have been known to create the soliton in a fiber.
However, wavelength division multiplexed systems have provided a challenge for soliton communications. In wavelength division multiplexing, multiple beams are provided. Each of the beams has its own wavelength. This produces, however, complex non-linear interaction between the propagating pulses on these beams. This non-linear interaction has hampered the existence of solitons in WDM beams in fibers.
Attempts have been made to compensate for the effects.
The present application teaches modification of various parameters of an optical system in order to produce solitons for optical communications through an optical fiber. The operation is done by setting the parameters of the pulses on these beams that will be launched into the fibers according to a specified relationship.